What is Public Health?
Public health promotes and protects the health of people and the communities where they live, learn, work and play. Public health saves money, improves our quality of life, helps children thrive and reduces human suffering (APHA, 2022).
What does Public Health do?
- Working to ensure the environment and situations in which people can remain healthy.
- Assessing water quality and supply of safe water for people.
- Vaccinating children and adults to prevent the spread of disease.
- Educating people about the risks of alcohol and tobacco.
- Establish the safety standards to protect worker.
- Develop and execute school nutrition programs to ensure the access of children to healthy food.
- Tracking disease outbreaks and preventing injuries.
Some fields of public health:
- First responders
- Restaurant inspectors
- Health educators
- Scientists and researchers
- Nutritionists
- Community planners
- Social workers
- Epidemiologists
- Public health physicians
- Public health nurses
- Occupational health and safety professionals
- Public policymakers
- Sanitarians
10 Essential Public Health Services
- 1. Assess and monitor population health.
- 2. Investigate, diagnose and address health hazards and root causes.
- 3. Communicate effectively to inform and educate.
- 4. Strengthen, support and mobilize communities and partnerships.
- 5. Create, champion and implement policies, plans and laws.
- 6. Utilize legal and regulatory actions.
- 7. Enable equitable access.
- 8. Build a diverse and skilled workforce.
- 9. Improve and innovate through evaluation, research and quality improvement.
- 10. Build and maintain a strong organizational infrastructure for public health.
Purposes of 10 Essential Public Health Services
- Providing a framework for public health to protect and promote the health of all people in all communities,
- To achieve optimal health for all,
- Promoting policies, systems and services that enable good health and seek to remove obstacles and systemic and structural barriers — such as poverty, racism, gender discrimination, and other forms of oppression — that have resulted in health inequalities.
- Everyone should have a fair and just opportunity to achieve good health and well-being.
References
American Public Health Association (APHA), 2022. What is Public Health? Last accessed on 13/11/2022. https://www.apha.org/what-is-public-health.